


Traffic and Weather

by grassthatchedHut



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Gen, Pale Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-15
Updated: 2012-06-15
Packaged: 2017-11-07 18:51:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/434255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/grassthatchedHut/pseuds/grassthatchedHut
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Prompt: "DaveTerezi. roadtrip + surrealism."</p>
<p>Written for the <a href="http://hs-olympics.dreamwidth.org/">Homestuck Shipping Olympics 2012</a>, Bonus Round 1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Traffic and Weather

They were somewhere around Dana Point on the Pacific Coast Highway when the drugs began to take hold.

That was a blatant fabrication. There were no drugs--Dave was not rockin' on the horse size pills--though there might as well have been for how Terezi carried on. Girl was high on life, high on the blue sky and white clouds and the litter-strewn sandy beaches. Dave wasn't sure if he was glad to have brought her to California or not; the trip had sounded like a good idea originally, but that was before she'd scrambled halfway up a palm tree to taste its sharp fronds. She was so light that the slim trunk barely bent under her weight.

"California is insubstantial!" she shouted down to him from her perch, and scraped her tongue over the bark. The tree swayed lightly in the wind, and Dave almost felt nauseated on her behalf. "It is all spun sugar and fondant. I could crush everything here in my palm."

"Get down from there," he said. "You look like a fucking psycho. Here, come check out this asphalt, this should be like goddamn licorice candy for you, right?"

She shimmied down to the sidewalk, but his heart kept beating like an 808 drum anyway.

Now they were crawling up the PCH in the battered Alfa Spider he'd scored on Craigslist back in Houston, top down and the breeze in their hair and traffic moving ten miles an hour like a rusted glacier. Every breath tasted salty to Dave and he didn't know if it was from proximity to the ocean or if Terezi's fucked-up synesthesia had elevated itself contagious and cackling into a full-blown folie à deux, coming apart at the seams, pitching himself for leads in people's dreams.

He reached for the bag of Red Vines in the center console, shoved a red sugary stalk into his mouth and chewed. It was ninety in the shade today, and the heat haze rising off the road was dizzying, made the melty world waver like Salvador Dalí-vision on a week-long bender.

The road cleared north of Aliso Beach, and Dave opened the Alfa up heading towards Heisler Park, shifting into third, then fourth, amazed that the car hadn’t yet caught fire as Alfas were prone to do. Even so, a whine of protest from the engine made him wonder if maybe the Reliant Robin would have been a better choice. That had been a looker--fur-lined boards, white wall wheels, cruise control, built for speed, chrome on everything.

"Let me drive," Terezi said.

"No."

"Let me drive, coolkid, you are drifting dangerously towards the double lines." She snatched the end of the Red Vine from his lips and popped it in her own mouth, wicked teeth gnashing.

"I am not going to let you drive my car so you can score an eighth from the lesbians out west of Venice. You don't even have a license, E.T." He pulled off to the right into a strip-mall and turned into the In-N-Out drive-through. "What happens when we get pulled over--'Oh no, Officer, I'm prepping her to get her learner's permit! My little girl's growing up so fucking fast!' Maybe if I cry he'll let us off with a warning."

Together they sat in the parking lot, devouring animal-style fries while the world melted into the persistence of memory. The birds circled, waiting for them to fumble and spill their food. Dave watched Terezi lick cheese and Thousand Island dressing from her fingers like a penitent kissing Christ's feet, widening the corridors and adding more lanes. She was now accepting callers for these beautiful pendant keychains.

He stole an onion from her 2x4 burger, and needed nothing more to get him through this semi-charmed kind of life.

"We can't stop here, coolkid." Terezi held a fry aloft, cackling as it was snatched from her. "This is seagull country."

When they pulled back onto the road Dave was grinning.

He was a man on the move, and just sick enough to be totally confident.


End file.
